The present disclosure is generally related to image guided medical procedures using a surgical instrument, such as a fiber optic scope, an optical coherence tomography (OCT) probe, a micro ultrasound transducer, an electronic sensor or stimulator, or an access port based surgery, where a medical navigation system includes a robotic arm for assisting a surgeon.
Optical tracking systems used in the medical procedure track the position of a part of the instrument that is within line-of-site of the optical tracking camera. These optical tracking systems also require a reference to the patient to know where the instrument is relative to the target (e.g., a tumor) of the medical procedure. These optical tracking systems require a knowledge of the dimensions of the instrument being tracked so that, for example, the optical tracking system knows the position in space of a tip of a medical instrument relative to the tracking markers being tracked.
Conventional systems have infrared (IR) cameras that track reflective markers such as balls placed on a frame on a pointer, port, or positioning device arm. Additionally, a robotic arm may automatically position and focus a camera on a surgical site of interest based on position information received from the optical tracking camera images.
Such robotic arm positioning systems occasionally interfere with the surgeon, requiring the surgeon to manually move the robotic arm to a different position. Conventional robotic arms can be awkward at times to manually position. Conventionally, the surgeon has to press a manual button to release the locks on the robotic arm, which then allows the surgeon to manually move the arm into the desired position. Because of the numerous segments on a typical robotic arm, it is sometimes difficult to move the arm such that the whole arm (i.e., all the segments) are correctly positioned. In addition, the conventional setup requires the surgeon to touch the robotic device to position it, which can create risks for contamination during surgery.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an improved system for manually moving a robotic arm during a medical procedure.